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7 Aug 2014

compiling a travel journal of memories

So, you know that feeling where you've got a brand new, blank notebook in front of you but you have no idea what to do with it for the fear of doing something 'wrong' and then messing up a notebook that had the potential to be neat and organised? Yeah, that's the feeling I had with my Paper Republic notebooks. When I first posted about these notebooks, I didn't mention the quality of the paper but now that I've cracked open one of them and put it into use, I thought it was a good time to re-visit them.

I had two to choose from: a blue one with gold dots or an orange and gold striped one. I opted for the latter - it is just so cheerful and was perfect to remind me of the awesome time I had in Hong Kong over Christmas and New Year earlier this year.

The unstructured nature of plain paper in this notebook makes it perfect for journalling.

In this travel journal, I stuck things in using washi tape instead of glue. For each day of the holiday, I wrote a bit about what I did and whatever else I wanted to remember. When I was in Hong Kong, I kept a mini-journal in note form of what I did each day so I guess that helped me make this journal as complete as possible.

I printed off photos taken on my phone (my printer isn't great but it does the job) and stuck those into the journal.

I added in a few stickers - some sensical (the snowman to denote how cold it was even though it wasn't snowing in Hong Kong) and some non-sensical (the bunny). I included the above picture of the Christmas tree as I haven't been to Hong Kong during Christmas since I was about six years old so naturally, Christmas trees and other festive decorations had me excited (quite a few double page spreads were dedicated to decorations I had seen whilst on holiday!).

There were also a lot of pages dedicated to food and my particular favourite double page spread has to be the one referring to the time I tried out a Triple O's White Spot burger. I even included a sticker of a girl in a pig suit as that was definitely how I felt after that meal...

The final few pages were about the return journey home so there were pictures of Hong Kong airport, airplanes while at the airport and also my return ticket. I was really sad to leave as Hong Kong is a place that has a special place in my heart - it is where my heritage is, where the majority of my family are and, let's not forget the amazing shopping opportunities there too.

In my opinion, the only thing missing from this notebook is gilt-edged paper. That would have been a nice touch for a notebook that has the potential to be luxurious but has fallen one step short. I used my Kuretake Cocoiro brush-tipped pen Muji gels, Papermate Flair felt tips and also Muji Erasables in this journal. There was a tiny bit of feathering with the Kuretake Cocoiro (very little but noticeable if you look closely), Muji gels didn't write as smoothly on this paper and the Erasables and Papermate Flair pens were ok. Showthrough was pretty much non-existent with all four pens.

Hope you've enjoyed this peek into my travel journal - I finally got round to making this journal after exams ended and I had a lot of fun doing it!